The Top 20 Films Of The Decade As Decided By 40,000+ Flickchart Fans

Since our public launch in September, we’ve grown to well over 40,000 users, and garnered a total of more than 60 million rankings. As we approach the close of the year, and the start of a new decade, we thought we might take a moment to showcase the Top 20 films that our users have deemed to be considered the best-of-the-best from 2000-2009. So without further adieu, here are the best ranked films on Flickchart of the decade:

Alfonso Cuarón’s downtrodden vision of a doomed human future, combined with masterful cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki, created an intensely powerful film. The humanity shown by the well-cast Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine lent itself to become entrenched as one of the decade’s best original examples of science fiction.

As one of the first “digital backlot” films to have widespread success, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s use of a large ensemble cast to portray the film noir comic book adaptation for the silver screen resonated with Flickchart’s users in a big way. The movie’s unique visual techniques even won itself the Technical Grand Prize when it screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

A ubiquitous choice of the young – and the young at heart – Pixar’s fish fable achieved record breaking sales in theaters and on DVD. The film also pioneered the very latest technologies in eye-popping CG with its lush renderings of the ocean, its inhabitants, and its landscapes.

To reinvent the franchise, the unlikely casting of Daniel Craig brought the Bond series to a new level of action, sophistication, and intensity that moviegoers had not expected. While the fate of future Bond films incorporating the same tone and delivery might be in question (see Quantum of Solace), there’s no denying that this film commanded the respect of critics, and Flickchart’s users, alike.

While comparisons to Bond films are inevitable, Matt Damon’s portrayal of an amnesiac assassin worked in entirely new ways – through quick-cut editing, frenetic pacing, and a surprisingly involved character and plot development. Doug Liman’s direction of the story based off Robert Ledlum’s novel brought audiences a style of action film that has since been copied and replicated in movies ever since.

This has-been superhero tale showed that writer/director Brad Bird could incorporate the sensibilities shown in his previous film, The Iron Giant, with the 3D mastery refined over the years from Pixar. This is the second title that Flickchart users ranked highest for the decade from the near-infallible animation studio.

The oldest title on the list from 2000, Ridley Scott’s historical epic gave Russell Crowe one of the best roles of his career earning his first – and only – Best Actor award. The film itself also won Best Picture, Best Visual Effects, Best Costume Design, and Best Sound.

As the only semi-horror title on the list, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg brought British humour into the most unlikeliest of places – a romantic zombie comedy (rom-zom-com) – and immediately cemented itself as a modern cult classic.

Michel Gondry took the surreal artistry of his diverse music video background and applied it well to this quirky sci-fi story of love and memories, with the help of writer Charlie Kaufman, and two unusual, but brilliantly cast stars in Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey.

A bold, cautionary tale of humanity from Pixar wrapped within a CG robotic romance hooked audiences. With minimal dialogue, the film still captivated with its strong story, dazzling visuals, and environmental message.

Guy Pearce brought his own raw performance of a man afflicted with memory loss to Christopher Nolan’s narratively backwards psychological thriller. Scientific experts even remark that “anterograde amnesia” has never been more accurately depicted on film.

The Coen Brothers’ first Best Picture win came with a lot of help by haunting portrayals from bad guy Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Tommy Lee Jones. The supporting cast’s realistic performances, nihilist themes, and deliberate pacing all lent itself to critical acclaim for the successful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel.

After a career full of amazing films, Martin Scorsese was finally recognized with a Best Picture win for his latest modern gangster tale. Commanding roles from Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and an ensemble cast helped this Boston-based bloodbath receive a crowning achievement in cinematic history.

Quentin Tarantino’s homage to martial arts revenge cinema proved the director’s continued creativity in filmmaking. Violent, stylized, and full of cultural references – the movie rocked audiences and left them clamoring for its second half, “Kill Bill, Volume Two“.

The middle of the saga earned enormous amounts at the box office, boasted massively epic battle scenes, talking trees, and the introduction of one of the best all-CG characters, Gollum, brought to life by Andy Serkis and the Weta wizards.

The dénouement of the Rings trilogy brought Peter Jackson and the production team 9 Academy Awards, 4 Golden Globes, 5 BAFTAs, 2 MTV Movie Awards, 2 Grammy Awards, and 9 Saturn Awards – making it the most honoured fantasy film in history.

This reboot of a long suffering film franchise gave comic book movie fans something to cheer about with Christopher Nolan at the helm. Christian Bale brought a new, darker toned performance to the character’s origin story, and gave moviegoers a new angle to empathize with Gotham City’s caped crusader.

The first film in the Lord of the Rings saga gained the most respect by Flickchart users with its many characters, incredible natural New Zealand environments posing as Middle-earth, and masterful storytelling. It depicted the beginning of Tolkien’s tale on film in a way that just couldn’t have been achieved before without Peter Jackson and the effects of New Zealand’s Weta Workshop.

Do you have any films that you felt were completely overlooked? Are many of your favorites left out? Write a comment below, link to your own personal best films of the decade, and tell us why some of your top movies should have been on the list!

Nathan Chase is a co-founder and the designer of Flickchart. He's also a multimedia designer & developer living in central Florida, an online culture and social networking enthusiast, a proud father, an avid PC gamer, an incessant movie watcher, known for an eclectic musical taste, and often writing and performing music - on the drums, guitar, piano, or computer.
You can find Nathan on Flickchart as Zampa, and email him at nathan@flickchart.com.

20 Responses

Of course it’s going to be biased towards general releases, american films and fanboy film – it’s a list created by a collective of online users! (mass population of westernised geeks) Favourite films are going to be those that have been seen by a lot of people and the most widely distributed films are american films. I don’t think you should discredit someones opinion just because their taste in film differs from your own.

I think it’s a GREAT list and is the best of its kind I’ve seen so far.

I love it. And I’ve seen them all, something I’ve failed to do with most other “Top of the Decade” lists. It’s fascinating to see how this compares to Rotten Tomatoes or Rolling Stones. I think it also serves as a demographic statement of us Flickchart users (which makes me feel damned old…) Kudos!

In the future, a cool feature would be a filter that formulates the top list without putting so much weight on quanitity of people that have seen it (perhaps, filter among users that have seen 1000+ different movies?).

I mean, given 2 people that have done the same number of rankings, it seems like if a person ranks a movie 50 out of 500 movies, then that holds more weight than some one that ranks it 150 out of 2000. Doesnt seem right.

Also, since the All Movies filter trends toward popular stuff, people that just come to the site for awhile and never come back to it are proabbly heavily skewing things. Theyll stay around long enough to rank the Batmans and Star Wars, then they leave with a list of 100 movies. How do the lesser known movies of the decade even stand a chance if they never even come up for a large portion of users? so yeah, it might be cool to be able to filter some people out in the overall rankings charts.

Green Mile was a 1999 movie, Bad Boys 2 shouldnt be on a top 20 list for its year let alone decade, and its Infernal Affairs (not Internal). Theres a lot of other stuff but its hard to tell whether or not some people are being sarcastic.

Hello from Germany! May i quote a post a translated part of your blog with a link to you? I’ve tried to contact you for the topic The Top 20 Films Of The Decade As Decided By 40,000+ Flickchart Fans | Flickchart: The Blog, but i got no answer, please reply when you have a moment, thanks, Gedichte

twilight sucks. it’s widely turning into a chick flick and say what you want but until the end of the second part bella behaves like a slut. also twilight saga unlike the movies in this list does not give you a feeling that you have seen a good film. hangover is awesome by the way

Decent list. THERE WILL BE BLOOD is easily top 5 for me. ETERNAL SUNSHINE should be higher. GANGS OF NEW YORK, 25TH HOUR, CRASH, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES, MUNICH, etc. THE DARK KNIGHT & LORD OF THE RINGS deserve th highest spots. LOST IN TRANSLATION, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, DOWNFALL?

No Potter, No Pirates!? Some people simply refuse to take their lips off Tolkien’s tail, and why all the Batman reboot crap? Comic book movies should be fun and exciting, not over-melodramatic Godfather rip-offs!

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